How You Speak
by De Fideli
Summary: Every time he walks through the door, by some cruel trick of the universe sent to check on her room, she greets him with the annoying smirk. "So what are you still doing here?" Oneshot.


"The technology in this place is fantastic! They have these new scanning machines that can track high concentrations of certain cells without even running a blood test or doing anything invasive and-" Joly begins to rattle off excitedly, but he needs to merely glance at Enjolras' face to recognize his friend's wishes for silence.

"Cheer up, chief," Combeferre pats his shoulder as they report to their assigned stations. He loosens his necktie and takes another sip of his decaffeinated coffee, straightening up as the senior management approaches them. "It's not a terrible place to spend the next few years. Could be a lot worse."

_And a lot better_, he thinks to himself, not bothering to argue with his friend. Combeferre has heard enough—he is well aware that medicine has never been his friend's passion, nor has it been his most exceptional talent. Some days, Combeferre and the other aspiring doctors cannot help but envy his passionless skill.

Enjolras can almost feel his soul slowly being drained out of his body with every day that he spends in the wretched place, with every unwilling step that he takes on the over-sanitized linoleum floors. He has never been particularly fond of hospitals, but the grievance over the environment is his least. He does not find the appeal to saving lives when the system itself is broken.

He receives orders and nods in acceptance, feeling the sickening sensation in his stomach that this is now his life.

* * *

He meets her two weeks in, during his rounds in the intensive care unit. They normally hold off during visiting hours, but she does not have any and he wants to go home early, so he checks in with her.

He reads the report: hypothermia, dehydration and malnutrition. He assumes her to be one of the homeless women picked up off the street, fallen pawns of neglect. He reads further down the list: cracked ribs, concussion, broken hand—his lips turn downwards to form a frown, and he looks in. The girl is awake, and Enjolras curses at the idea of making contact with the patient.

He has never been particularly great at small talk, or bedside manner for that matter. "Ms. Thenardier?" She looks up to meet his eyes, but barely has the energy to lift her neck. "Dr. Enjolras. I've come to check on you." Even in his residency, he hates the title.

Her eyebrows furrow. "Isn't it a little early?" she glances at the clock, then back at the young man, turning her head in the smallest angles to avert the pain.

"For someone who's probably supposed to be in a coma, you're terribly observant," he mutters into his clipboard.

"That's some bedside manner you have there, doc," she rolls her eyes with the minimal energy she has left to operate. He looks up at her in the midst of his surprise over her retaliation, and a dignified smirk is on her split lip. "You're not a doctor, are you?"

"Will be soon enough," Enjolras replies, disinterested in her probing as he checks off boxes, periodically looking at the screen of lines and numbers meant to convey the patient's wellness. _Clearly has enough attitude to keep her alive_, he wants to write on the patient report.

She is amused, and he does not know why. "So you still have time to get out, then."

The statement causes him to lower his clipboard and look at her, though he immediately returns to the papers as soon as he realizes that she can see right through him. Perhaps, he tells himself, avoiding her gaze would prevent further discovery. "What makes you think I want to?"

"I know a miserable life when I see one," she replies, matter-of-factly as she toys with the blanket placed haphazardly on her waist.

"With all due respect, miss," he replies calmly, trying not to elevate his voice with the accompanied stress the topic brings to him. "I don't think you understand how complicated it is." Of course she wouldn't, he assumes. Sometimes, he even envies lives like what he thinks hers is, free from expectations. No, she does not understand the burden of a family name.

"Probably not," she agrees. "But is it ever going to get any simpler?"

She raises a good point, but he does not tell her that even after concluding his routine check.

* * *

She does not respond well to treatment, so she stays for another week because only the good Lord knows how many things she can be exposed to on the streets. Despite her weakness, he comes into her room every day to her constant teasing. She tells him that the powder blue scrubs do nothing for his complexion; she tells him that he is the most unapproachable, cold soon-to-be doctor that she has ever come across, and she adds that she's seen her fair share of doctors.

She does not tell him that she's never been the patient until now. The doctor encounters came from her sister's untimely childhood passing, and when the hospital bills piled up, her parents vowed that sacrificing a business would never again be worth caring for their child.

Every time he walks through the door, by some cruel trick of the universe sent to check on her room, she greets him with that annoying smirk. "So what are you still doing here?"

* * *

He is in the room when she is told of a necessary surgery, and for the first time, she does not meet the news with her resilient smirk. He wants to tell her that there is absolutely no reason to be scared—it is a routine surgery. He almost tells her that he's sure it's not the first time she's had to worry about a knife, but he holds off on that strange reassurance too.

When the rest of the doctors file out, he stays; Joly and Combeferre look back curiously, but walk away asking no questions.

"Are you scared?" he asks her as she gazes out of the window into the limited view of the city from the fifth floor of the hospital.

"I just want it to be over," she says quietly, once again toying with the blanket. He notices that the habit occurs when she speaks simple truths. "You see, doc," she begins, using the nickname she knows that he loathes. "I don't think life's gonna get any better even if my body does." She thinks of the hospital bills, the large numbers she has never even possessed in her bank account and certainly not under her worn out mattress.

"You don't know that," he argues.

"Like I always say, I know a miserable life when I see it," she replies. "Future included." She looks back at him, and a small smile forms on her lips. "Yours, on the other hand, yours has so much damn potential."

He takes a seat by her bed for the first time, and the small gesture warms her heart. "What makes you say that?" he asks. It's strange, because he has never been the one to ask questions—but the knowing smirk returns to her face, and he just has a feeling she has the answer he's looking for.

"You're mad at yourself for being here," she replies, nonchalantly. "Everyone can tell you belong somewhere else."

So he tells her. He tells her all about his four years studying Political Science, despite promising his parents he would take all of the medical school requirements. He tells her that when his mother passed away, he didn't have the will to defy his father's wishes anymore. Then he had to live through the slowest four years of his life. He does not know why he tells her, but when he looks back up to see her understanding countenance, he feels relief washes over him—as if all he needed to do was tell her, and suddenly it would seem so clear.

* * *

She falls asleep to him by her bedside, but when she wakes up to prep for the surgery, he has left. At first, she feels a pang of hurt and loneliness, but when she puts it all together, she goes into a sedated unconsciousness feeling like the happiest girl on earth.

She does not wake up to hospital bills, because a generous man paid for them after turning in his badge, his security pass, his heralded Doctor title. He picks up a book for LSAT preparation on his way home, and he goes to bed that night feeling like the happiest boy on earth.

* * *

When he delivers his speech as the elected graduating class speaker at his law school, he swears he sees her in the audience smiling proudly, but then he remembers.

He thinks back to a week after he left the hospital, when Joly mutters, "I can't believe a stupid surgical mistake like that." He figures out the rest with much sadness, but he remembers the wounds all over her body and most of all, that knowing smirk that would tell him to stop looking like a man with a death sentence. It was she who had such a fate in the end.

Mid-speech, he says, "It is never going to get any simpler." He assures them that it is okay, because it's better than being miserable. He looks up at the class, with a smirk on his own lips, provoking each and every one of them to begin a life full of blissful complications. "So what are you still doing here?"


End file.
